Bound Together With Whiskey and Music
by Vandervault
Summary: She may have Imprinted, but she sure won't bow down to him like a lovesick puppy. It already sucks having to deal with the new leeches. It already sucks having to deal with the redneck leech, Hollis. And it especially sucks knowing that the universe has decided to bind them as Imprint and Mate. Leah really hates her life...but at least Hollis is cute, even for a leech.


"Jacob, I'm just beginning to like you; why do you have to go and ruin it with the fact that you're dragging me to the bloodsucker's mansion?"

Her feet are up on the dashboard as Leah tries to slink into the seat as far as possible. Jake grips the steering wheel, as if he's refraining from smacking Leah's legs off of his precious truck. "Because the blonde one, Jasper, he invited five vampires to live with them for a while."

"Five? How many do we have already, eight and a half? We don't need thirteen," Leah groans, resisting the facepalm that she's seen Seth do a million times ever since he got addicted to those meme websites.

"They've all even agreed to eat animals instead of their regular diet," Jake shrugs, "I think we need to do a little inspection, though. Y'know, Leah, you could be just a bit more cheery about all this."

"Hell will freeze over the day I'm nice to some bloodsuckers," Leah nearly hisses. After all that vampires have done to her - make Sam leave her for Emily, turn her baby brother into a wolf, completely eff up her life in the most consequential ways possible - she will never, ever be nice to leeches.

* * *

The first one Leah sees is a tall blonde.

"Hi! I'm Grace. You must be Jacob and Leah," she says perkily, as if she's downed a whole vat of Red Bull. "Quil, Seth, and Embry are already here."

"Fantastic," Jake mutters as he goes directly into the house. He hangs with Nessie so much nowadays he's completely used to the bloodsucker's hideous smell.

Grace doesn't notice his reply (or if she does, she doesn't acknowledge it). Instead, she keeps her gaze on Leah. "Hollis should be back soon! He went with Carlisle to go and try hunting animals. It's all our first times hunting like this, you see; some of us've been alive for centuries, but we've never tried animal blood."

Leah wants to retch. This bloodsucker is acting as if they're the best of friends, like they're as close to each other as Leah used to be with Emily. It's sickening, how...gregarious this vampire is to her. It's almost like Seth worked his charm on her, and now she believes all werewolves are going to be as friendly to her as Seth is.

"Hello, Leah," Carlisle says from behind; if Leah wasn't used to this eerie way of them showing up, she probably would have jumped out of her skin. "I see you've met Grace."

Leah grits her teeth. "Yes, yes I have." She can smell the pungent odor of rust and copper. It's not on Carlisle's clothes - that she can see once he walks in front of her and beside Grace - but the scent of blood is blatant in the air.

"So this is the female shapeshifter you've told me about," says a deep Southern drawl. "Leah Clearwater." It's like he's relishing the name, like it's a delicious dessert to his meal of blood.

And then he steps out in front of her. Glowing heat - not too hot, but just warm enough to fill up every inch of her insides - cloaks Leah. It's almost as if gravity moves, shifts itself to the man standing near her now. She has to catch her breath, a sharp intake, the shallowness not being noticed even though her lungs are grasping for any sort of air a few moments later.

He's tall. Taller than Jacob, even, and he's 6'7'' or so. His eyes are a darkened topaz now, the very centers of his irises being a deep goldenrod. His hair doesn't exactly stick up; it's dark, styled like Adam Levine's (which kinda makes Leah gag, since she's not a huge Maroon 5 fan), curled in the very center as if he runs his hands through that particular part all the time. Stubble lines his jawline and chin, making a very peppered mustache and meeting at the corners of his lips. In the thin sunlight that Forks has decided to let shine, the faint teeth marks (that must be scars) are concealed vaguely by the shimmer of sparkles. A dark blue button-up is covered by a black jacket; he wears black jeans, and surprisingly (since none of the other nomad leeches are wearing shoes), he has on dark brown boots.

He's gorgeous. Gloriously so. He's really freaking handsome. And Leah almost never finds guys handsome (well, there's Justin Timberlake, but that's a completely different story).

"The name's Hollis."

_Hollis_. It curls around her tongue perfectly, as if the name merely belongs in her mouth, as natural as breathing (which, happily, Leah has resumed doing).

Leah doesn't reply; she doesn't know what to say. All she knows is - if her inference is correct - she just imprinted on a leech. She just felt exactly like Jake and Embry and Quil has described as Imprinting, all warm and fuzzy and feeling like she could freaking giggle.

Like she could _freaking giggle_. She wants to gag and squeal at the same time. Which feeling is more prominent - the overwhelming gravitation towards him, or the feeling of wanting to throw up on his boots? She really doesn't know.

"Um," Hollis says, in a surprisingly display of awkwardness, "Are you alright there, ma'am?"

_What do you think, you idiot, I just freaking Imprinted on you, oh my God, I Imprinted on a leech, a vampire, for God's sake, _Leah's thoughts run at a million miles per hour. It's like she adopted Seth's mindset and injected some crack into her veins.

So, Leah says what she always says when she's pressured.

"I need a cold beer."


End file.
